ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the Western and Chinese perceptions of humor. It argues that Chinese and Western views of humor could be differed in terms of a dichotomy between the extraordinary view of humor represented by the Chinese and the ordinary view of humor represented by the Westerners. The Chinese extraordinary view of humor regards humor as a controversial disposition in social interactions as well as a personality trait possessed largely by specialists in humor related fields. It is based on Confucian puritanism against fun-seeking nature of humor that may potential jeopardize the five cardinal relations in social interactions. It then reviews a number of empirical studies that examined the Western and Chinese differential perceptions of humor. These studies generally show that Chinese, compared with Westerners, place significantly less value on humor and rate themselves as being much less humorous. The Chinese also associate more negative words with humor and nominate significantly more comedians as prototypical humorists rather than their own friends and family members. They provide evidence that Chinese people tend to hold an extraordinary view of humor and echo with previous findings that Chinese hold negative implicit attitudes toward humor.
